Mary's
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The Artful Readers Club for January
Artist's Journal Workshop: Creating Your Life in Words and Pictures by Cathy Johnson Sat in front of a local church on a sunny Saturday, then picked some flowers to examine. I only had a pencil so I added the watercolor later. Armed with few supplies, I went to one of my favorite spots and doodled. Lines added in Photoshop before posting...timid me. Please note: I recommend this book for any artist at any stage...my reference to 12-13 year olds in this review, is remarked due to the value of journaling. It's actually a very sophisticated book on many levels. In a brief shuffle through the pages of Artist's Journal Workshop , I found myself conflicted. The book contains numerous examples of a style of art making that toggles between the hugely personal and a publishable 'look'. So, with that...the book set up on my shelf for nearly a year. Now, after an honest read, I still feel a bit conflicted...but in a way that offers some inspir...
Initial thought is that it reminds me of a Rorschach test. I think the consciousness keeps on changing around these images.
ReplyDeleteI started off thinking they were fish. Then I started seeing a face inside the blue body, and the whole thing took on a suggestion of a figure looking downwards (with a devil figure behind, conjuring a magical spell). Then I started seeing floating planets... (plus, inside the two bodies - there's more and more figures cut out, as it were, like one of those paper chain patterns...)
(and all the time, I'm wondering why 'Mary's' - are they two icons that belong to the Virgin Mother? Is this a place - we're at Mary's?)
I think there is a theme of reproduction going on here, since the two figures/objects are both identical. But which one is the original?
I think the colour scheme is ash and blue flame.
The diagonal is perhaps significant. It means 'from angle to angle' in the ancient greek. It's probably a sort of meta-comment on the way we perceive and saying that there's nothing outside of sight (or we can't get out of looking, no matter how much we try).
Interestingly, the shadow figure decapitates and makes the head introspective - is this a comment on over-intellectualisation of looking?
Suneel, you are such a writer! And a writer of fiction :). It is a sketch of Mary Mangalane from Leonardo Da Vinci. I ran it through Illustrator and the nifty tools that provide "gradiance". It's really a select and click device, really simple and strange in the end. Over-intellectualizing always welcome!
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